Members from Ogar-Kegums in Latvia and from S.I. Cirencester & District plant a tree at Longfields
Four members from SI Cirencester and District enjoyed a great weekend in Latvia supporting
SI/Europe Ogre-Kegums, Latvia as they held their first ever friendship weekend. Soroptimists from
Lithuania and Finland also attended.
This was Cirencester’s experience:
On our first day, we visited Rundale Palace, now a museum, built in the Baroque style and given as a
present by Catherine the Great to her young lover’s nephew. After enjoying the wonderful displays of
china and paintings and visiting the beautiful rose gardens we made our way to a farm where the owners
live and work using old fashioned methods.
The evening saw us in the garden of one of the Latvian Soroptimists where were entertained by children
singing national Latvian songs. Latvia is known as the singing nation and they certainly live up to this
5
name. We enjoyed eating and drinking national foods and dancing away the evening.
On Saturday, we visited Cesis the second oldest town after Riga. Cesis castle is of early medieval origin,
founded around 1206 by some German Vlivorians, a spectacularly interesting site. We had lunch at a
communist style restaurant, giving us a good indication of how life might have been under Soviet rule.
For the final evening, we enjoyed a trip on a floating sauna on the River Daugava. Such a laugh with food,
drink, and swimming in the river, which has so much iron in it, you looked tanned when swimming!
Early on Sunday we were driven up to Old Riga where we met some of the Finnish contingent, took an
open top bus city tour before enjoying a hearty lunch. We wended our way back to the airport after lunch.
Thus ended a fabulous weekend with fun, laughter, renewing of old friendships and making new.